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Where is Vietnam?

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Basically to hold the line against the spread of world Communism. America paid for the war the French fought against Communist Vietnam as a part of the Truman Doctrine (1947) “to help free peoples to maintain their free institutions and their national integrity against … totalitarian regimes.” In the 1950’s, America became involved again.

The Geneva Peace Accords, signed by France and Vietnam in the summer of 1954, provided for the temporary partition of Vietnam at the 17th parallel, with national elections in 1956 to reunify the country.

In the North, a communist regime, supported by the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, set up its headquarters in Hanoi under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh.

American policymakers developed the “Domino Theory” as a justification for the involvement. This theory stated, “If South Vietnam falls to the Communist, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, India and Pakistan would also fall like dominos. The Pacific Islands and even Australia could be at risk”.

Buddhist monks and nuns were joined by students, business people, intellectuals, and peasants in opposition to Diem’s corrupt rule.

The more these forces attacked Diem's troops and secret police, the more Diem complained that the Communists were trying to take South Vietnam by force. This was "a hostile act of aggression by North Vietnam against peace-loving and democratic South Vietnam."

In a series of government "White Papers," Washington insiders denounced the NLF, claiming that it was merely a puppet of Hanoi. They called it the "Viet Cong," a derogatory and slang term meaning Vietnamese Communist.

The NLF, on the other hand, argued that it was autonomous and independent of the Communists in Hanoi and that it was made up mostly of non-Communists. Many anti-war activists supported the NLF's claims.

As Kennedy weighed the merits of these recommendations, some of his other advisers urged the president to withdraw from Vietnam altogether.

In typical Kennedy fashion, the president chose a middle route.

Instead of a large-scale military buildup or a negotiated settlement, the United States would increase the level of its military involvement in South Vietnam through more machinery and advisers, but no military troops.

In August 1964, in response to American and South Vietnamese espionage along its coast, North Vietnam launched an attack against the C. Turner Joy and the U.S.S. Maddox, two American ships on call in the Gulf of Tonkin.

The first attack occurred on August 2, 1964.

A second attack was supposed to have taken place on August 4, but authorities have recently concluded that no second attack ever took place.

The North Vietnamese used classic Maoist guerrilla tactics. “Guerrillas must move through the peasants like fish through sea,” i.e., the peasants will support them as much as they can with shelter, food, weapons, storage, intelligence, recruits.

After “Operation Rolling Thunder,” the Communist Party moved to a protracted war strategy: the idea was to get the United States bogged down ina war that it could not win militarily and create unfavorable conditions for political victory.

In late March 1968, a disgraced Lyndon Johnson announced that he would not seek the Democratic Party's re-nomination for president and hinted that he would go to the bargaining table with the Communists to end the war.

Negotiations began in the spring of 1968, but the Democratic Party could not rescue the presidency from Republican challenger Richard Nixon who claimed he had a secret plan to end the war.

Nixon's secret plan involved a process called “Vietnamization.” This strategy brought American troops home while increasing the air war over North Vietnam and relying more on the South Vietnamese army for ground attacks.

The Nixon years also saw the expansion of the war into neighboring Laos and Cambodia, violating the international rights of these countries in secret campaigns, as the White House tried desperately to rout out Communist sanctuaries and supply routes.

Shock waves crossed the nation as students at Jackson State in Mississippi were also shot and killed for political reasons, prompting one mother to cry, "They are killing our babies in Vietnam and in our own backyard."

In December 1972, the Nixon administration unleashed a series of deadly bombing raids against targets in North Vietnam’s largest cities, Hanoi and Haiphong.

These attacks, now known as the Christmas bombings, brought immediate condemnation from the international community and forced the Nixon administration to reconsider its tactics and negotiation strategy.